It seems The Daily Jot about Russia’s prophetic significance got people to thinking, which is a good thing. And when people think, they begin to ask questions. I might say that questions about prophecy are best answered with Bible study–not by studying what people teach or say about the Bible. You put a lot of effort into reading what people say about prophecy in the Bible, you may as well put that effort into finding out for yourself what the Bible says. Once you get started, you will not want to stop. There will be so many things you will find that have been taught as fact, but they are not what is in the Holy Scriptures. Remember, CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT, and a few other little secrets are key.
There are primarily three methods of interpreting the names, peoples, and nations mentioned by the prophets in describing the coming empire of the antichrist. They are: The Ancestral-Migration Method–This method of tracking down and identifying the actual bloodlines of these ancient people is difficult. Many of these people have migrated, intermarried, or just disappeared. Because thousands of years have passed since the prophecies were made, tracking down most of the civilizations mentioned is almost impossible. However, some ancestral connections are fairly well established. The descendants of Ishmael, for example, are still identifiable as the Arab people in the Middle East.
The second is The Hyper Allegorical Method–Many conservative scholars over-compensate for the problem of the ancestral migration method by stating that those names and peoples mentioned by the prophets are simply references to general enemies of God’s people. This approach makes allegorical the multitude of references throughout the prophets of names such as Moab, Edom, Assyria, or Lebanon to simply mean either every last nation on the entire earth or any end-time enemy of God’s people. This approach overlooks the literal plain sense meaning of scripture. This hyper allegorical method is the most common among conservative commentators.
The third method is The Prophetic Literal Approach–This method identifies the location of the land or people at the time the prophesy was made, then looks at who inhabits the land today. This helps to avoid arbitrarily pointing to nations that have no real connection to the people or regions named by the prophets. Next is to emphasize the persistent violent enmity toward the people in the land of Israel. This is the most repeated basis for judgment of the enemies of God’s people in the prophesies of the Day of the Lord which point primarily to the Middle East and Northern African nations.
The Prophetic Literal Approach, to me, is the most reasonable approach and that is the one I choose to follow. That’s why I believe it is a reach for America to be mentioned in the prophecies–you just cannot find it anywhere. No doubt, I agree that America shapes the playing out of the prophecies (just as Russia is), but neither are mentioned players on the field.
As to the antichrist, a lot has been written about who he is and where he comes from. But the prophets are consistent. The “antichrist” is alluded to as the Assyrian in Isaiah 10:5,10:24,14:25, 19:23, 30:31, 31:8, Micah 5:5-6, and Hosea 11:5. Ezekiel 38:17 refers to him as “he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel.” It is quite possible that the antichrist/the Assyrian will arise from what is now Turkey. Jesus Christ identifies modern Turkey as the seat of Satan. In Revelation 2:12-13, Jesus says, “And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write: These things says he which has the sharp sword with two edges; I know thy works, and where you dwell, even where Satan’s seat is…”
Remember as you study and discern, don’t just pick out verses and build your own context around them as have many modern Bible teachers. Keep the verses in context. You will also find that the prophets are extremely consistent in what is written, especially about the end times. They are viewing The Day of the Lord event from several perspectives, but all are consistent. Why? Because it is God’s word, not man’s.
